


Point To Prove

by QueenoftheHobbits



Series: If We Had More Time [2]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: F/M, wondertrev
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 21:52:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11389143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenoftheHobbits/pseuds/QueenoftheHobbits
Summary: Steve Trevor has many doubts while recovering under the care of Diana. So many doubts. Stupid doubts that he shouldn't have.





	Point To Prove

He has these doubts when he is in the hospital and especially now that he’s out and back in his own Apartment in London. Now that Diana is so dutifully looking after him and trying to help him fully recover. He hates that he doubts Diana or rather that he doubts her feelings for him because he knows those doubts are more than likely nothing but a load of rubbish. Brought on by his ever present insecurities.

He hates that he wonders why she’s still around, hates that he thinks maybe she won’t love him or want him anymore now that he’s so weak, so fragile, so feeble. Now that he struggles to walk anywhere without a cane, now that she has to help him get into the tub and listen to him struggling with the pain of so many burns at night.

Sometimes he wonders if he’ll ever get better. What if he’s forever walking with a cane? What if he can never get into the bath on his own again? What if he’s always in pain? What if she leaves him? What if she decides he’s not worth the effort anymore?

He knows it’s unfair to her and her character; that even if she no longer loved him romantically she would almost definitely ensure he was looked after whether by herself or someone else. Diana was just that good. That’s part of why he fell in love with her. Her optimism, her belief that people deserve to be saved, that things can be good.

The doubts are heavier lately, more rampant and he makes him refuse help. He feels bad for it, but he wants to prove he’s still the strong young man she first met, even if he’s not right now. She notices of course, Diana is frustrated when he pushes her away, when she says he’s fine when he is most certainly not.

She’s watching him struggling into the copper tub he spent far too long filling. She tried to help and once again he told her no. Part of her is still in awe of him, in awe of the fact that he is a _man_ that even while struggling into a tub, covered in burns and wracked with pain he is beautiful. So different and yet so similar to herself that she always finds herself staring at both the similarities and differences.

He is broader and taller, not much, but still to enough of a degree that she notices the width of his shoulders and the few inches he has on her. He has a penis that is certainly the biggest difference, one she never thought much of until she met a man for the first time, strange things and yet beneficial…she doesn’t talk about it much, he and his people are much quieter about that side of things. In Themyscira the pleasures of the flesh were talked about regularly and everyone was free to partake in it. She had certainly.

She thinks it will be different with Steve, not because of the thing between his legs, but rather because how she fells for him is different. The strength of emotion she has for Steve is a variant on the feelings for her family. Similar, strong, loving and yet different in how she sees him. This is romantic love rather than familial love. She has had many sexual partners, but they were not romantic rather, the desire to simply let loose, release tensions. Even those she had romantic feels for were not strong, not enough time to develop them.

So she thinks with Steve, when he is ready, it will most certainly be different.

“Let me help.” She has had enough of watching him struggle to get a leg over the tub and while she knows part of his refusal is to prove he is capable she also knows that if he doesn’t let her help he’ll hurt himself more and recover slower. She refuses to watch him hurt himself out of pride or stubbornness or whatever else it was that was causing him to act like this.

“No, Diana. I have to do this.” She finds it painful watching him and steps forward, hand reaching for his arm. He shrugs from her grip and she backs away. Hurt despite knowing that he doesn’t mean it to be hurtful. But it does hurt to have him refuse her touch. So soon after having him back as well.

“Why do you have to do this, Steve?” Part of her is begging for him to look at her and tell her everything, so that she can help. So that she can put whatever fears or doubts he has at ease. It is so obvious that he is bothered by more than just physical wounds and part of her is worried that it’s to do with her. That maybe he doesn’t want her around anymore. Maybe he said he loved her in the heat of the moment believing he was going to die and now he was rethinking everything. Maybe her presence in his apartment is unwanted and she is simply overstaying a welcome she never even received.

“Because I…” He stilled put his leg back against the ground, he ached from trying to get into the tub and found himself sagging in relief that he was no longer trying. She sounded so reasonable, she always sounded so reasonable. But it was reasonable to ask. Why was he hurting himself, refusing help? To prove a point? To win back her affection without knowing if he had actually lost it?

“Steve…” She’s behind him, hand reaching to press against his shoulder, the portion of skin unburnt and scarred, he shakes under her touch and she realises he’s crying. “Steve?” She’s concerned and turns him to her. He is crying. She doesn’t think he’s ever really seen him cry. This is new and it is unwelcome and she wants him to smile like he does, the soft sort of smile that is never too obnoxiously loud or too quiet.

He lets her carefully wrap him in her arms, she is so gentle, so worried about hurting him anymore than he already is hurt and it makes him cry harder. She threads a hand through sandy blond hair, gentle with the strands and waiting for him to speak or stop crying. To come down from whatever realisation he had or whatever was overwhelming him. She hated seeing him struggle, it was one thing to see him struggle to walk, to bathe, it was another to see emotional turmoil which he had hidden away from her since he came back.

The tears slow and he takes a deep shaky breath. Diana is perhaps the only woman that doesn’t make him feel bad for the tears. He doesn’t feel unmanned or lesser or stupid or ridiculous. He simply feels a portion of emotional weight off his shoulders. She doesn’t treat him as if he isn’t supposed to cry. Not like the military did. Not like so many people do. She treats it as if it is normal and right and he is very much relieved by that.

He pulls back and she removes her hand from his hair to cup his cheek instead, watching him blink away the last tears and sniffle. “Why, Steve?” She is persistent and she refuses to let it go until she knows. She wants to help.

He leans into her hand, eyes closing, a sigh leaving him. He looks defeated and in a way he is. He’s admitting defeat and preparing to tell the truth. To bare his soul to her. Even if it’s only a portion. But Diana is so easy to bare all to. She is so understanding and so caring to anyone and everyone and it makes it so easy to let those walls come down and speak.

“I want to prove to you that I’m still strong…I’m worried that…” She waits, thumb rubbing against his cheek. He won’t look her in the eye and she doesn’t force him to. It’s obvious that this is something he never intended to tell her. “I’m worried that you won’t love me now that I’m…like this…especially if I’m always like this.” They hadn’t truly shared many ‘I Love you’s’, hadn’t truly discussed the feelings between them since he came back. But they both knew that those feelings were there.

“Steve Trevor.” He finally meets her eye at her tone. Completely serious and determined to make him listen to her every word. He had seen her sad. He had seen her angry. He had seen her overjoyed and confused. But serious and stern was not something he’d properly seen before.

“You may be wounded, you may be hurt and perhaps you will never be like you were before. But I love you and I will continue to do so whether you can walk unaided or not. You are so strong even if you do not see it. Your body is not the only part of you and I love you not for it or what you can do, but for who you are.” She’s cupping his cheeks in both hands now, imploring him to listen, to believe her and he does. Her brown eyes are sparkling in a way that says ‘I adore you’ without any words. He can’t help but believe her when she looks at him like that. Even her gentle touch says it without words.

“I know we haven’t talked about it but I do love you…strange as it is to feel like that. I have never felt so much pain until I thought you had died, Steve. Nor have I ever felt so much joy upon seeing you alive. I could care less if you cannot walk alone or need help bathing…all I care about is that you’re here and that you’re you.”

She cannot properly describe the pain at believing he was dead, the pain that gave her such a strength of will to kill a God. She cannot describe the pure relief and joy past the fear once she saw him breathing. The relief that had her crying. She cannot describe how strong the emotions he creates in her are. She never thought she needed to until now, until he doubted her love for him. He was more than a body, more than an ability to walk or get into a tub. He was kind and brave and he had his doubts and his fears and he was so utterly human and he was so utterly Steve. She couldn’t always figure out what about Steve made her love him so much, it was little things and everything all at once. But no amount of pain, no amount of damage, no amount of hurt to him could make her stop loving _him_.

He closes his eyes tightly because he can feel tears collecting again and this time he doesn’t want to cry, this time he wants to see her in full clarity and not as a watery blurred mess. So he blinks them away before looking at her properly, pain shooting through his arm as he raises it to brush against her cheek. “I love you too…and I do want you’re help…I was just scared and my pride…”

“It is okay, Steve. Now, how about we get you in that tub before the water cools?” She doesn’t let the air hang with an awkwardness, moving on from the fears and the doubts and reminding him that while sometimes she is awkward and does not understand social situation in this world, she understands him perfectly.

She helps him into the tub, careful to make sure he doesn’t trip over the edge, careful to make sure he doesn’t enter the water too quickly. She kneels beside the tub, arms crossed on the brim and head tilted in her arms.  She watches him, not because she is worried he’ll hurt himself, but because he relaxes in the tub, some of the pain being removed by the water. Because he is so utterly beautiful when is isn’t in pain and because she just loves watching him now that he will let her.

It was a point of pride and a point of doubt that made him turn away from her help, but he knows now. He knows that she loves him and that those doubts are so unfounded, so ridiculous that she will gladly push them away for him if he’ll only ask her to. She is beautiful, strong, capable, resilient, and he is so lucky that she is in love with him. He is lucky that he didn’t die. He is lucky that they have more time. He’s determined to not let fears and doubts get in the way of that.


End file.
